Why was a sheep in a Seattle police car?

“It turns out we gave you all some baaaaaaahd information earlier this week when we identified a ruminant found wandering near Beacon Avenue S. and S. Leo Street as a goat,” Seattle Police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee said in a statement.

The animal is actually a sheep, according to the Seattle Animal Shelter’s Don Baxter – a sheep that’s now back home after a ride in a police car.

Baxter relayed to police that the sheep’s owner, who lives outside Seattle, asked a friend to watch the sheep at their south Seattle home.

“During the sheep’s stay in south Seattle, he got out of the yard and wandered off,” Spangenthal-Lee said. “A relative of the sheep’s owner saw the sheep in the news, and helped reunite the pair.

The owner got his sheep back Wednesday after paying an impound and microchipping fee of about $75.

Police also released a photo of the sheep in the back of a patrol car Sunday. He had been wandering the streets of Beacon Hill and officers had put him in the patrol car so he wouldn’t be injured or run away.

“He apparently made quite a mess in the back of the car,” Spangenthal-Lee said.